First Snowfall
by avanti90
Summary: Cordelia's first snowfall.


******First Snowfall**

There were no seasons under the surface of Beta Colony, but Survey Captain Naismith had done her homework. She had diligently studied planetology and meteorology, and by the time she brought her lightflyer down by the shore of the long lake at Vorkosigan Surleau, she knew the precise length of Barrayar's year, the exact tilt of its axis and the eccentricity of its orbit to the second decimal digit. None of it had prepared her for this, she thought.

She had known there would be snow on the ground, yes, but to imagine that it would _cover_ the ground, and then cover it in a carpet of white six inches deep so that she had to wade through it in heavy boots! Leather from a real animal's skin, too, and she could almost forget that part when she saw the soft white blanket settling over the treetops, the long lake frozen solid - and yes, she had tested that five times, she had even dared to take a few hesitant steps on the slippery surface in the noble cause of science, and it really was solid.

Cordelia tried to remove the giddy feeling from her head and take in the scene with a scientist's detached curiosity. It wasn't as if there was anything miraculous about it, she told herself. Only crystals of frozen water. Tiny supercooled droplets of water, freezing inside the clouds, growing larger and larger until they tumbled through the atmosphere, collecting and colliding and sticking together in lumps...

All true, and yet it entirely failed to convey the sheer beauty of the soft white flakes falling into her outstretched palm. She took off her thick woolen gloves – wool off the back of a real live animal, too - and dug her bare hands into the freezing snow, laughing out loud in exhilaration. If there were any Barrayarans around, they would certainly think she was mad.

She, mad! These Barrayarans had millions of snowflakes! Billions! A free supply replenished every day for months! And they took it for granted and treated it as if it was the most ordinary thing in the universe to have frozen water _falling out of the sky_.

Everything was still new to her, even though she had come to Vorkosigan Surleau months ago. That had been at the height of summer. The weather service at the shuttleport had told her the temperature and the humidity and the wind speed with perfect accuracy, and yet had unaccountably failed to tell her about whole mornings spent lying on the grass by the long lake, with her husband by her side and a bottle of wine between them, or picnics at the top of the hill that stretched on all day, or the early morning sunrise drifting through the window of their bedroom and lighting up Aral's face on the pillows beside her, or... suffice to say that Cordelia had decided that she liked summer.

Summer had faded into autumn, when the sky turned gray and Vorkosigan Surleau was covered in a solid carpet of red and gold and rain. Rain! It was her favorite thing on Barrayar - aside from Aral, of course. The first time she had seen solid walls of water pouring down from the clouds, she had simply lost track of what everyone was saying and run to the window in sheer delight. Five minutes later she had looked back and realized that Aral hadn't even noticed the rain. He had been too busy looking at her.

Was each snowflake really different from the rest, she wondered. Her hands itched to take a camera and notebook and start recording this incredible alien phenomenon. She could take her survey shuttle up to the atmosphere and measure the temperature and the wind and the pressure differences, and put it all into her neat little climate modeling software back on the _Rene Magritte..._

Except that she wasn't investigating the alien planet anymore. Somehow, sometime, without even noticing it, she had become one of the aliens. She loved Beta Colony, and there were times when she missed her mother and her brother and her nieces with all the concentrated heartache that only light-years of separation could bring. But there were just as many times when she looked at Aral right here, right beside her, and he made her feel as if she belonged on this planet. As if it had been her home all along and she simply hadn't noticed. He...

Cordelia squealed in horror and stumbled as something freezing cold hit her on the back of her neck and slipped into her coat and down her back. The next thing she knew, she was sprawled in an undignified heap in the snow, with Aral standing in front of her, the corners of his eyes crinkled up in mischief, his face lit up by an angelic smile even as he began to pack another snowball between his hands.

There was only one honorable response a Vor could give to such a challenge, thought Cordelia, as she gathered all the snow her hands could hold and flung it into his face.

The next few minutes were a blur of ice and snowballs and Aral, and they ended up rolling over and over in the snow, both of them too wet and too busy and laughing too hard to speak, holding each other close for warmth as well as ease of targeting.

"Surrender," she demanded in her most awful voice, holding an enormous fistful of snow threateningly over his face.

Aral raised his hands in defeat. "Dear Captain," he gasped, smiling that perfect angelic smile again. "Can we negotiate peace?"

Winter, Cordelia decided, was definitely her favorite season.


End file.
